


Adult

by JRaylin441



Series: Briareus [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Love, Gen, Late Night Conversations, Let's be honest, Nightmares, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, it's like the only thing i can write, poor alphonse just deserves some company, the whole Elric deal, they are both having a rough time, this one isn't really like any of the others
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 02:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7023079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JRaylin441/pseuds/JRaylin441
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An early-morning conversation between the brothers where Ed learns something new about Al and simultaneously makes his own life harder.</p>
<p>
  <i>He was hurting, and Ed had run out of time to be a child. Time to grow up. Remember the dream, and then pack the ghosts away, tightly, tightly. Lock the box. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adult

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is the first oneshot of a collection I am about halfway through writing at the moment. I'll be posting about one chapter a day here until it catches up with the story on fanficiton.net.
> 
> The basic idea of the story is that each oneshot explores a different aspect of Ed's personality, from various points of view. Feel free to read the oneshots in any order you please.

_Ed sprinted down the halls of the house. He knew the building like the back of his hand, but somehow he kept getting lost, as the halls stretched away into infinity, with endless turns and twists that had never been there before._

_“Big Brother! Big Brother!” He could hear her, and he knew that if he could just run_ faster _he could get there in time to stop it._

_A door to the right._

_He threw it open and at first thought he was looking into an empty room, but then he saw it. The chimera limped into the light of the doorway and stared at him, her head cocked to the side and Ed hadn’t seen it when it happened but he_ knew _what came next and then she was nothing more than a streak of blood on the floor next to an unmoving body, but her eyes were still intact and they stared up at Ed, asking whywhywhy._

_The blood dissolved into little reaching black hands and her eye grew larger and larger until Ed was sure that he was going to fall in…_

Ed woke up gasping for breath and soaked through with sweat, so that he couldn’t tell if there were tears on his face. The sheets felt slick against his skin. Shucking them off, he spent a moment in the dark, focusing on breathing, breathing. Just a dream, but his fault, all his fault.

Al.

Normally this was the time when Al would walk over to him and Ed would press his forehead against the cool metal and remember that at least there was this. If nothing else, he would keep going, because there was _this_ to protect and love and repay. It was a routine established between brothers after years of Ed’s nightmares of the Gate. So why wasn’t Al there now?

The floor was freezing against his super-heated feet, but he rushed around their dorm, trying to find where a seven foot suit of armor could possibly hide itself. Within a minute, it was abundantly clear that Al was no longer in the room, and Ed ran out in the hallway and down the stairs.

“Al! Alphonse!” He wasn’t anywhere in the building and Ed was getting desperate until he checked the front doors. Just outside, there was a suit of armor sitting on the steps, arms wrapped around knees and staring at the stars.

“Al?” Something wasn’t right. That much was already clear. He didn’t turn around to the sound of Ed’s voice, but just kept staring at the stars. There was no reason to ask. Nina had died three days ago, and they had been running on fumes since then. This was the first time Ed had really slept since he had heard…

He sat down next to the hulking metal shell that hid the fragile boy inside and knocked his automail hand against the chest plate so that it let out a hollow _gong_. Lightning fast, a leather glove grabbed at his flesh hand and clenched, so tight that Ed thought the thing might just fall off, but he squeezed back and looked up at the stars.

“I think she would have become a star. All is one and one is all, right? So she’s a part of the universe now and I think that she is going to become her own constellation.” Ed and Al had never seen quite eye-to-eye on exactly how far ‘all is one and one is all’ could extend. For Ed, it meant that she was currently in the ground, slowly rotting away and feeding bacteria and maggots, so that the cycle of life could continue. Al had always wanted more out of it than that.

For a moment, just a moment, Ed considered reminding Al of what was happening to Nina as they spoke. The girl and dog were currently wasting away, together in death as in life.  But this was his little brother, and Al had always required a lighter touch than Ed.

“I think she and Mom are up there in the stars right now, shining in the sky so that the night doesn’t have to be completely black.” This was the first time that Al had mentioned this about their mother, but he spoke the words as if they had been rolling around his head for ages. Ed wondered if this was what he did all night, while Ed slept the hours away. There was a window just beside the bed, and it was all too easy to picture him, arms wrapped around his legs like they were now, talking to the sky through a little hole in the wall, convinced that their mother was listening.

Al didn’t remember the Gate. Al had not seen as much of the transmutation as Ed had. That night had taken away any chance that Ed would ever be able to think like his little brother was right now, and he was grateful every day that it had been his job to remember the mistakes, rather than his brother’s.

So he sat on the stone staircase; hair slicked back, loose, and drying crusty from the sweat; butt frozen stiff with bare feet quickly headed that way; pajama pants dragging on the ground and oversized shirt hanging off one shoulder. He sat on the stone staircase and held the hand of a seven foot suit of armor until his hand was purple and numb. He sat and watched the stars slowly fade as the sun creeped over the horizon.

And Ed realized that his brother was no longer perfectly protected. He had been hurt, and he was grieving in the only way that he could while stuck inside this metal casing, turning to the sky and the only family he had left. He was hurting, and Ed had run out of time to be a child. Time to grow up.

Remember the dream, and then pack the ghosts away, tightly, tightly. Lock the box.

“I see her. She’s right up there, between the North Star and the Lion.” One automail hand pointed up to the sky, tracing lines in the last hazy glow of morning stars.


End file.
